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arathenerd · 2 years

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✨Fanfic soulmate AU idea for Merthur✨

Hi, hey, hello.

So. Here’s the thing: this idea has been literally living in my mind rent free and it has developed into a sort of monster idea at this rate. I NEED this thing out so maybe someone actually competent at writing can pick it up and make me very very happy. So. So. So. I’m gonna divide this post in three parts to make it more understandable and all that, starting with the world building.

World building 🌎

I know what you are thinking. “Oh, soulmate au, must be very straightforward and boring” NO MY FRIEND.

Usually, in a soulmate au, a superior divine power (be it a god, the universe, or whatever) chooses the characters partners without their intervention. In this world, the characters are the ones who choose their soulmate.

“What?” Yeah. Hear me out.

In this world magic not only exists, but it’s also widely accepted and integrated in society. That includes practices such as marriage, which can be accomplished in three different ways.

Your usual magicless ceremony, though in this world is not as popular as,

Emotional-bonding ceremony. Pretty self explanatory, I think, but nevertheless, is about bonding emotionally with your partner, which means people can feel what the other is feeling. Is believed that this bond allows for a deeper connection in the relationship. And then there’s the most rare one,

The soul-bond ceremony. Like I said, extremely rare. This is mostly because of a series of different reasons, but is also considered the most important marriage bond you could ever have, if you do, and is widely romanticized. Soul-bonded pairs, because of this, are deeply respected, to the point that separating them is considered a grave violation.

Some of the reasons why soul-bondings are extremely rare:

a. It doesn’t work for everyone. What I mean with this, is that just being in love with someone isn’t enough. The soul bond requires not only a deep mutual understanding, but a love that transcends the body. In a matter of speaking, your soul has to be in love with the other person's soul.

b. It’s not enough if you do happen to love that person that way, but the same kind of love it’s not returned. It needs to be mutual.

c. It cannot be forced. You can’t make an arranged marriage with a soul-bonding ceremony. If the people involved aren’t willing and don’t feel like that, the magic simply won’t take. And finally,

d. Not that many go for it? I mean, the prospect of a soul bond is daunting as it is but on top of that, this ceremony is not as simple as that. As the name itself tells you, this is a soul-bonding ceremony. You are literally uniting your souls. That’s not only permanent, my friend, it will also transcend your mortal life and bleed into the next. Do you have any idea how desperately and profoundly in love you have to be to go for it? Yeah, exactly.

As you probably noticed, yes, this is where the chosen soulmate thing comes into play 😏.

Reincarnation exists in this world, but mostly, people can never know if they are reincarnations or new souls… unless, of course, the had a soul-bond from a past life.

People really don’t get flashbacks or memories if they do happen to be reincarnations, soulmate or not. There’s no such thing as a soulmark but the universe does have its ways to push people that are supposed to be close together.

You know when you are about to go on a trip, add all these thing to your baggage, and feel like you have everything you need, except… no. Not quite so. There’s something missing. You turn around your room, even search the bathroom, but for the life of you, you can’t figure it out. The feeling it’s maddening, anxiety inducing, really. What is missing?

And then, you can’t wait anymore and need to leave, so you do. You get to your hotel, and, while unpacking, it hits you. Suddenly you know exactly what you left behind and, yes, it turns out to be something you very much need.

That feeling, that nagging at the back of your brain, it’s how it feels to be reborn soul-bonded. Not that people can recognize it easily. Besides that, there’s the hunches. Sudden strong feelings that say “yeah, if I do this, if I go down this path, I’ll get closer to finding this thing I need, even if I don’t know what it is yet”. It’s slow working, but people always get there. Eventually. It only takes one look for your soul to sing in recognition.

Also, just because they are soulmates doesn’t mean they immediately fall in love. They are still strangers to each other. It’s more like, meeting someone and having the perfect comfort that if you work for it, give it your all, you will find a love like no other at the other side.

Engagements are also done with magic, usually. The practice is as sort of more formal promise, because once a person is magically engaged to another, any magic done in a ceremony (marriage) that isn’t done with the person you are engaged with simply won’t take.

Not only that, but if you happen to already be married (either with an emotional bond or a soul bond) and try to get engaged, the magic won’t take either. This means that if you are a reincarnated soul with a soulmate, you might find something new about yourself at your engagement ceremony lol.

Unless you happen to do a magicless ceremony I guess, but like I said, it’s really not the preferred thing.

Arthur in this AU 👑

After laying down the basics, who’s Arthur in this AU, within my head?

He’s the crown prince of a kingdom (it can be Britain if you wish, or a modern Camelot, idk, it really doesn’t matter) and he’s about to go through his engagement ceremony. *gasps*

Is an arranged marriage, of course. If you write this, you can choose whoever you like to be the woman at the other side, but either way it’s not gonna last.

Arthur, of course, isn’t happy about it but knows this is his duty and all. Never mind the constant feeling that he’s doing something he really shouldn’t be doing, or the feeling of guilt he doesn’t understand.

The ceremony is a public affair. Nobility, high society and royalty are all there to witness the event as expected, including journalists to document the event. Then the ceremony begins, Gaius, the Court Sorcerer to King Uther, doing the spell casting. Except, it doesn’t take.

The guests, who had been silently expectant, suddenly start quietly murmuring. What’s happening?

Uther frowns, going to Gaius, wanting an explanation. Calmly, Gaius tells him that the engagement won’t be possible, since the magic bounced against Arthur. The murmuring gets louder. Is the prince already engaged? Married? Oh, my!

Uther turns to his son, red in the face, screaming “what have you done?!” But Arthur is just as confused as everyone else. He says as much.

Gaius intervenes, telling the king there’s no point in being mad at Arthur, since the soul bond was clearly done in a past life.

Now people are really going nuts with this. Soul bond? It’s rare of course, but do you have any idea how many centuries it has been since a noble, let alone a royal, was soul-bonded? Let alone the crown prince?

Arthur can feel his heart beat out of his chest.

This is pretty much the only clear scene I have in my head, so, yeah. I also played with the idea of having a sort of soul-tracking spell that lets you see who’s at the other side of the soul bond as if it was tv and make everyone look at Merlin and realize it’s him but I wouldn’t know how to make it work. If you can, I might kiss you.

Merlin in this AU 🧔🏻🪄

So, you probably noticed Gaius being Court Sorcerer to king Uther there, didn’t you. It will be relevant here.

Court Sorcerers and monarchs in this world work as a team. Usually, when a new king is crowned, a new court sorcerer will be named, and this sorcerer will be the most powerful one of the same generation as the will-be-king. Sometimes, they'll meet before the kingship, sometimes after. There aren’t really any hard rules about that.

The new Court Sorcerer prospect is not obliged to say yes, but it is considered a high honor. Not that Merlin in particular wanted to.

Merlin is not only the most powerful of his generation, but also the most powerful to be born in centuries. This is not surprising, since it doesn’t matter if he’s reincarnated or not, Merlin is always going to be the most powerful one. But I digress.

He was found by Gaius, when he was 17, barely getting out of school. He explained the process: he would go trough training, and when the time came, he’ll take his place.

Merlin really wanted to say no. He almost did, but something stopped him. A hunch, a feeling that, maybe, just maybe, saying yes would be worth it. The feeling was strong enough for him to doubt his original stance, and then, to yield.

And so, the man would spend years under Gaius’s tutelage on all things magic and royal customs and etiquette, these days being closer to his thirties (somewhere between 25 and 29 years old). And everything would be perfectly fine if he hadn’t had the most curious dream.

You see, I said that people usually don’t remember their past lives but Merlin is a bit different. He’s pretty sure this was a past life.

In the memory, he’s running through the woods. He runs, runs, runs, feeling the heartbreak, the pain, the tears running down his face.

Modern Merlin doesn’t know it, but his past self would dare to soul bond with prince Arthur of Camelot, even knowing he wasn’t his to have. They did it because they wanted something only theirs, for once. Something no one could take away. But, as was usual when it came to duty, prince Arthur would be forced to marry eventually. And that day was that day.

So Merlin runs. Eventually, he reaches a hidden stone cellar, abandoned a while ago. He goes in it, burying the precious item within. He buries it because he knows no one must ever find it. The gods only know what would happen if the nobles or, gods forbid, the king figured out what they’ve done. So he buries his dreams and hopes, protects them with magic so they are not eroded and damaged by the earth, enchants the cellar so it doesn’t fall apart on top of it, no matter how much time passes.

A sudden fear paralyzes him. What if he tried to recover it and didn’t find it? No. That wasn’t an option. He was being a fool, he knew. He would never get the item back. But just in case, he needed to make sure that he could.

And so, the Merlin of the past didn’t know it, but, the spell might have worked too well. The point was to brand the location in his brain, but he’s so desperate, so scared, he doesn’t realize he branded it in his soul.

Modern Merlin wonders at this memory, wonders at the sudden necessity to go look for the item. But the thing isn’t there anymore, is it? It probably never was. It was just a dream.

And yet, before he knows it, he’s already looking, something he can’t name driving him forward. He feels ridiculous, set for disappointment, but he can’t stop. He walks as if he knows where he’s going.

His heart stops when he sees the beat down entrance of the cellar. It goes up to his throat when he goes without stopping to the specific place the item was hidden. He chokes on it when he knows not only where it is, but how deep it was buried.

And then, it’s in his hand.

The ring is simple, but beautiful. A gold band with elegant Celtic runes. Merlin looks at it, fascinated. He can feel the magic embedded in it. Soul-bonding magic.

He gasps. It is believed that touching a soul-bonding item that’s not yours is bad luck, but he has the all encompassing feeling that this ring is his.

Now, within the library he seats with Will and tries to pretend there isn’t a necklace around his neck with a ring hanging from it, hidden under his clothes.

Finishing thoughts 💭

If you write this in a slow burn, longish fic, with angst but also mostly softness and drama from an external threat I would love you forever. Bonus points if you use third pov, specially with the media. I love when that’s included with characters that are supposed to be public. I mean, people gushing about the fairy tale with prince Arthur on twitter? Newspapers documenting what’s happening? Yes please. External pov is the best.

Super extra points if you write it without miscommunication being the center of the angst and the fic. Forget kissing you, I would soul bond with you.

Anyway that’s it. It’s pretty long, but hopefully someone feels as excited as I do about this AU and picks it up. If you do, don’t forget to leave the link in the comments ❤️.

#bbc merlin #merlin #Merthur #Merthur fic #fanfic idea #fic idea #Merthur fanfic #Arthur pendragon #merlin emrys #this idea has been HAUNTING ME I SWEAR #Is it obvious with how long this post is?#i just keep thinking about Arthur suddenly looking at Merlin and forgetting how to breath bc holy that man’s gorgeous #and the media going crazy bc the crown prince being soul bonded to a man? talk about unexpected #and then everyone and their mother shipping it so hard they are trending on Tumblr for a full month with gifs and everything #and Merlin seducing the hell out of Arthur and Arthur trying to pretend he isn’t helpless against it #uuughhhhh #king arthur #camelot

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